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ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

^^ Unconditional Surrender " 



John Hancock )i[^^| 

Mutual Life Insurance Company ifl g fi ii I p.|| 
Boston, Mass, /^ilillj 



THE OLD RELIABLE COMPANY 



ULYSSES SIMPSONV^ 
GRANT / 

Unconditional Surrender ' ' 



By 
Mabel Mason Carlton 



*•* 



Life Insurance Company^ 

«E Boston. Massachusetts 
THE OLD, RELIABLE COMPANY 







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'BELIEVE you are as hrave, patriotic, and 
just as the great prototype Washington, as 
unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest as a man 
should be; but the chief characteristic is the 
simple faith in success you have always mani- 
fested which I can liken to nothing else than the 
faith a Christian has in a Savior, ^^ 

— General Sherman to General Grant. 

HAR-3 73. 



©C1A700256 




ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 



ONE hundred and one years ago, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Gen- 
eral-in-Chief of the Union Army during the Civil War, and the 
eighteenth President of the United States, was born on April 
27, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Ohio, a pioneer settlement a few miles 
southeast of Cincinnati. He was christened "Hiram Ulysses" — the 
name Ulysses having been drawn from a hat at a family gathering 
shortly after his birth — but when he went to West Point he was 
registered as "Ulysses Simpson," his name in history. As a boy he 
was called "Useless" by the neighbors who did not understand the 
shy, quiet youth; as a cadet at West Point he was nicknamed "Uncle 
Sam" by his classmates; as a general he was spoken of as "Uncon- 
ditional Surrender" by his soldiers. 

When Ulysses was about a year old, his father moved to George- 
town and set up in business for himself as a tanner. Here the 
Grants lived until Ulysses went to school. The home had few 
material comforts. The small brick house, which was enlarged from 
time to time as the Grant business and family grew, had bare walls, 
crude furniture, and a great open fireplace. Save for a few sermons, 
hymn-books, and a Life of Washington, there were no books in the 
household. But it was a happy and contented family. ^ Later Grant 
wrote: "I have no recollection of ever having been punished at home 
either by scolding or by the rod." "He never heard a harsh word 
from either father or mother, or knew either to do an unjust act." 

The elder Grant soon purchased a farm near the village, and 
before Ulysses was eight years old, he hauled all the wood used in 
the house and at the tannery. Like most lads of the frontier. Grant's 
boyhood days were full of outdoor activity. He was an expert 



swimmer, diver, and rider. He loved horses. At nine he had a 
horse of his own. At ten he often drove a team of horses alone to 
Cincinnati, forty miles away, and brought home a load of passengers. 
At eleven he earned his first money by hauling a load of rags to 
Cincinnati and selling it for fifteen dollars. He performed stunts 
when riding, taught horses to pace, and broke them to harness. 
"If I can mount a horse I can ride him," was his truthful boast. 
Of his life between the ages of eleven and seventeen, Grant writes: 
"I did all the work done with horses, such as breaking up the land, 
furrowing, ploughing corn and potatoes, bringing in the crops when 
harvested, hauling all the wood, besides tending two or three horses, 
a cow or two; and sawing wood for the stove." 

Education 

GRANT first attended the village school, and then spent two 
terms in private schools at Maysville and at Ripley; but his 
learning here was limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic. He 
was a fair pupil; too much in love with the outdoors and his horses 
to be greatly interested in books. Although slow, very quiet, and 
modest, he was determined, decisive, and self-reliant when he once 
made up his mind. He soon loathed the tannery, and early decided 
to become a trader or farmer or to seek an education. His father 
became more and more prosperous; and, desiring very much that 
his son be educated, he sought an appointment for Ulysses to West 
Point Military Academy. 

No one was more surprised than Ulysses himself, when, at the 
age of seventeen, he was accepted at West Point. At the Academy 
he was above the average in mathematics and draughting, but in 
other studies, especially French, he did not rank so high. He did 
enjoy literature, and at the Academy library he read Bulwer, 
Cooper, Scott, and Irving. Many of his fellow cadets admired the 
coming General, and later wrote of him: "I never heard him utter a 
profane or vulgar word," "A perfect sense of honor," "A clear 
thinker and a steady worker," "A very much liked sort of youth," 
"He never held his word light, he never said an untruthful word 
even in jest." 

In one thing, however, he excelled. He was the most daring 
horseman in the Academy. The following story is told of his West 



Point days: "The class, still mounted, was formed in a line through 
the center of the hall. The riding-master placed the leaping-bar 
higher than a man's head, and called out, 'Cadet Grant!' A clean- 
faced, slender, blue-eyed young fellow, weighing one hundred and 
twenty pounds, dashed from the ranks on a powerfully built chestnut 
sorrel horse and galloped down the opposite side of the hall. As he 
turned at the farther end and came into the stretch across which 
the bar was placed, the horse increased his pace, and measuring his 
strides for the great leap before him, bounded into the air and 
cleared the bar, carrying his rider as if man and beast had been 
welded together. The spectators were speechless." When he was 
graduated from West Point in 1843, at the age of twenty-one, Grant 
was number 21 in a class-roll of 89. 



War with Mexico 
"D ECAUSE there were not enough troops for the officers graduated 
■'-' from West Point, Grant was assigned as a "supernumerary" to 
his regiment, with the rank and pay of a second lieutenant, and was 
ordered to Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis. After nine months 
of garrison life — months full of discontent for him, because he did 
not like being idle — he was ordered south with his regiment (May, 
1844), to aid in quieting Mexico. Before war against Mexico was 
declared, his regiment lay in camp over a year at Fort Salubrity, and 
waited for two months in barracks in New Orleans. In May, 1846, 
he fought in the battle of Palo Alto, and September, 1847, he entered 
Mexico City, "after having been in all the battles possible for one 
man." As a reward for daring and 
distinguished service, he was given 
the rank of first lieutenant, and 
then that of captain, although the 
latter commission came the day he 
resigned from the service. Early 
in the War with Mexico he was 
made regimental quartermaster, 
but he would not stay out of action. 
*'At Monterey, he mounted a horse, 
left camp, rode to the front, and 
joined the charge — the only mounted 




At Monterey 



man and thus a special target. When ammunition was low and there 
was a call for a volunteer to take out a message asking for new 
supplies, ... he dashed down the empty street, within the range 
of fire from every side, leaped a four-foot wall and delivered his 
appeal." Years later when an officer asked him if he ever felt fear 
on the battlefield, he replied, "I never had time." 

Grant was a practical and efficient quartermaster. "At Tacu- 
baya and at Monterey he rented bakeries and ran them for the 
benefit of the regiment." "In two months," he said, "I had more 
money for the regimental fund than my pay amounted to during 
the entire war." The Mexican War was a great training school for 
Grant. It taught him many lessons on feeding and clothing an 
army that served him well in the Civil War. He saw officers leading 
their men in battle, and the scenes fixed themselves in his mind, and 
came back to him as, years later, he led his own great army against 
Lee. 

A Soldier in Peace-Time 

AFTER the War with Mexico, Grant, as quartermaster, was 
stationed at Sackett's Harbor on Lake Ontario for a winter, 
for two years he was located at Detroit, the regimental headquarters, 
and then after another winter at Sackett's Harbor, he was ordered 
to California with his regiment in 1852. On the Pacific coast. 
Grant first served at Vancouver on the Columbia, then at Humboldt, 
where he was finally given his captaincy. Grant was not happy in 
the army in peace-time. He longed for the home-life and com- 
panionship of his wife and small sons. His pay as a lieutenant was 
scarcely enough to support his wife and babies back in Missouri. 
His restlessness increased and he resigned from the army, his 
resignation to take effect July 31, 1854, the same day he accepted 
the commission as captain. He had worn his uniform eleven years, 
and he was now happy to put it aside and, at the age of 32, to begin 
life as a private citizen. 

Back in Missouri with his wife and two small sons, he settled 
on an unbroken tract of eighty acres of land, which Mrs. Grant's 
father had given her as a wedding present. Grant "cleared it, 
built him a log cabin out of trees he felled and hewed himself, and 
with grim humor called the new estate 'Hard Scrabble.' He worked 



hard for a living, peddled grain and cordwood in St. Louis for ready 
money, grubbed stumps, bought hogs at sale . . . He was more 
thrifty than his neighbors and showed more ingenuity." Finally his 
health became poor and he traded his farm for a little frame house 
in St. Louis and went into the real estate business with a cousin. 
It is said that "he was too soft-hearted to collect rents from hard- 
pressed tenants." Then he was a clerk in the customhouse for a 
month, and afterward went to Galena, Illinois, to work with two 
brothers, Simpson and Orvil, in their father's wholesale leather 
business, "to stay until something better should turn up." "Ulysses 
served as clerk because he was good at figures; . , . He was 
allowed eight hundred dollars salary, and drew seven hundred more 
to pay obligations in St. Louis, a sum which he paid back afterwards. 
He had a comfortable little house . . . wore an old blue army 
coat . . , traveled to Iowa and Wisconsin once to buy hides 
. . . *In my new employ I have become pretty conversant,' he 
wrote in December, 1860, 'and am much pleased with it. I hope 
to be partner pretty soon.' " But within a short time Civil War 
was declared and Lincoln issued a call for troops. 



Civil War 

WHEN war between the Southern Confederacy and the Northern 
States broke out in 1861, Ulysses Simpson Grant was thirty- 
nine years old. He hastily uniformed and drilled a volunteer com- 
pany from Galena, took it to Springfield, and presented it to the 
Governor. At Springfield he was placed in the Adjutant-General's 
office as clerk. For some time he 
stuck to this simple task and showed 
such familiarity with military affairs 
that he was made "drill-master at 
outlying camps," then "mustering 
officer and aide." These were 
humble tasks for a man of his 
military training, but it is said that 
"he never asked for an appointment 
or promotion which he obtained," 
and that he never shirked a task, 
small or great, which came his way. "Hard Scrabble' 




His hope of a command was realized on June 16, 1861, when he 
received the following order: "You are this day appointed Colo- 
nel of the twenty-first Illinois Volunteers and requested to take 
command at once." 

A month earlier the newly appointed Colonel had mustered in a 
regiment of raw country boys camped near Mattoon, and these boys 
petitioned the Governor to give them this silent but effective little 
soldier as their leader. That is how Grant came by his first regiment. 
He drilled and disciplined his men for a month, then, when orders 
came for him to proceed to Missouri, he marched his men across 
country for practice instead of waiting for a train. His regiment 
did police duty in Missouri at Ironton, Jefferson City, and Mexico. 
In August, 1861, almost at the beginning of the war, Grant was 
recognized as a worthy leader and was commissioned Brigadier- 
General. 

Grant's first real fighting of the war came in November, 1861, 
when he left Cairo (where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers meet, and 
where he had been placed in command), went down the river, 
attacked and overcame the Southern force at Belmont, opposite 
Columbus. As he was withdrawing, one of his aides exclaimed, 
"We are surrounded." The sturdy Grant replied, "Well, we must 
cut our way out as we cut our way in," and forced his men back 
to the boats, he with "his horse shot under him, embarking last of 
all," and returned rejoicing to Cairo. 

Weeks of inaction, except for the constant drilling of his men, 
were to follow for Grant before his victory at Donelson, the first 
important success of the Northern troops during the war. The 
Confederates held two important forts. Fort Henry on the Tennessee 
River, and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. After Com- 
modore Foote, with seven gunboats, had taken Fort Henry, Grant 
with his troops began a siege of Donelson, and after three days of 
desperate fighting, received from Buckner, the Southern Commander, 
a flag of truce and a request for terms. Grant sent back his famous 
reply, which electrified the North: "No terms except an unconditional 
and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move 
immediately upon your works." Buckner accepted his terms. By 
this brilliant accomplishment of February 16, 1862, Grant became 
the military idol of the day. His countrymen nicknamed him 



"Unconditional Surrender" Grant, and his name was their rallying 
]cry. It has been written of the victory at Donelson, "Grant made 

(■it. and it made Grant." Lincoln, recognizing his ability, now 
recommended Grant for the commission of major-general of volun- 
jfteers, dating from February 16, 1862. 

^ Early the same spring, when the Confederates began to con- 

*centrate a large force at Corinth, Grant and his men camped near 
Pittsburgh Landing and awaited reinforcements from General Buell. 
On April 6, the Confederates, hoping to crush Grant before Buell 
''could arrive, attacked him in what is known as the battle of Shiloh. 

vi Buell having arrived at the end of the first day's fighting, Grant 
[attacked the Confederates in the battle of Pittsburgh Landing and 
won a complete victory. An observer wrote of the battle of Shiloh: 
"I can recall only two persons who throughout a rattling fire of 
musketry always sat in their saddles without moving a muscle or 
winking an eye; one was a bugler and the other was General Grant. 
. . . He (Grant) rode from place to place wherever bullets flew 
and gave commands . . . in a low, vibrant, penetrating voice 
... there was no mad rushing back and forth, no stirring calls 

J to action." Grant's next great victory did not come until the 

'5 following year. 

The Confederates held the city of Vicksburg, which controlled 
the lower Mississippi River. Grant, having completed his plans 

II for capturing this important city, made his first assault, which was 
not successful, in November of 1862, but he did not succeed in enter- 
ing the city until July 4, 1863, when Pemberton surrendered about 
31,000 men and 172 pieces of artil- 

f lery. The story of how Grant in 

'{[ eighteen days "marched two hun- 
dred miles, won five pitched battles, 
took eight thousand prisoners and 
eighty cannon, scattered a hostile 
army larger than his own fighting 
on its chosen ground, and had the 
rebel army penned in Vicksburg" is 
one of amazing interest. General 

Sherman wrote: "The campaign of ^e sat immovably in 

Vicksburg, in its conception and his saddle 




execution, belonged exclusively to General Grant, not only in the 
great whole but in the thousands of its details ... no command- 
ing general of any army ever gave more of his personal attention to 
details, or wrote so many of his own orders, reports, and letters as 
General Grant." Upon learning of the capture of Vicksburg, 
Lincoln promoted Grant to the rank of major-general in the regular 
army and wrote to him: "I do not remember that you and I ever 
met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for 
the most inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to 
say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicks- 
burg, I thought you should do what you finally did — march the troops 
across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go 
below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you 
knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like 
could succeed. When you got below and took Port Gibson, Grand 
Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join 
General Banks, and when you turned northward, east of the Big 
Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal 
acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong." 

The most completely planned of all Grant's battles was that of 
Chattanooga. After the battle of Chickamauga in September, when 
the Northern troops were driven back to Chattanooga and cut off 
from supplies. Grant was ordered to their relief and reached them on 
October 23, wet, dirty, and still on crutches, suffering from a crushed 
leg caused by a throw from his horse. Within five days there was 
no further danger of starvation, surrender, or retreat, so efficient was 
Grant in securing supplies and reinforcements. A month later, 
November 23, "Grant began the three days fight of Chattanooga 
. . . a feat unmarred in its perfection and as a spectacle unequaled 
in the history of war." On December 8, Lincoln sent Grant this 
telegram: "Understanding that your lodgment at Chattanooga and 
Knoxville is now secure, I wish to tender you, and all under your 
command, my more than thanks, my profound gratitude, for the 
skill, courage, and perseverance with which you and they, over so 
great difficulties, have effected that important object. God bless 
you all!" Congress revived the grade of lieutenant-general, which 
Washington had attained, and Lincoln gave the rank to Grant, 



making him General-in-Chief of all the armies of the United States 
on March 9, 1864. 

General-in-Chief 

MEMBERS of Grant's staff described him as: "Slightly stooped, 
five feet eight inches in height, weighing only a hundred and 
thirty-five pounds, modest and gentle in his manner," "His voice 
was exceedingly musical and one of the clearest in sound and most 
distinct in utterance that I have ever heard," "In utterance he was 
slow and sometimes embarrassed, but the well-chosen words never 
left the slightest doubt of what he meant to say " As Grant, now 
in command of more than half a million men, set out to crush the rebel 
armies and bring the war to a close, he bore with him these parting 
words of Lincoln: "If there is anything wanting which is within my 
power to give, do not fail to let me know. And now, with a brave 
army and a just cause, may God sustain you." 

Grant's task now was to capture Richmond, the Confederate 
Capital, and to destroy Lee's army. "For the first time since Civil 
War began, the keys controlling all the Northern forces were in a 
single hand, and when everything was ready for the word. Grant 
touched them all at once. From Culpeper, where he had pitched 
his tent, the signal flashed for every general to move on the 4th of 
May . . . From that time until the end. Grant kept his finger 
on the pulse of all his armies ... No other general since war 
was known had, while himself in action on the field, handled the 
maneuvers of so many armies scattered over so broad a territory 
and centered toward a common aim." The battles of the Wilder- 
ness, May 5 and 6, 1864; Spottsyl- 
vania. May 8 to 12; North Anna, 
May 21 to 26; and Cold Harbor, 
June 3, were the hardest Grant ever 
fought, but, after each, he advanced 
and Lee withdrew. These battles 
cost Grant dearly. There were 
times during the battle of the Wil- 
derness when defeat hovered near 
him, but he gave orders calmly; 

and when there was nothing more ^^^^^.^ headquarters in the 

to do but wait, "he went into his Wilderness 




tent and throwing himself face downward on his cot gave way to the 
greatest emotion." Another time, when Grant, with a loss of 18,000 
men, had forced his way forward and held his advance, his men began 
to fear lest he might retreat, but the next night he was headed south 
toward Richmond. "As he rode in silence along his shattered ranks, 
his worn and wounded soldiers saw which way his face was turned 
and rose up from the ground with cheers." "I shall take no backward 
steps," wrote Grant, as day after day he hammered at the enemy. 
At Spottsylvania he wrote: "I propose to fight it out on this line 
if it takes all summer." After Cold Harbor, Grant and Lee never 
fought each other face to face. The summer passed, winter came 
and went, and still Grant held on. "He has the grip of a bull-dog," 
said Lincoln. "When he once gets his teeth in nothing can shake him 
off." It was not until April 3, 1865, that Richmond fell, and Lee, 
fleeing toward Lynchburg, found himself completely surrounded. 
On April 7, at five o'clock in the afternoon. Grant, believing further 
bloodshed wicked, wrote to Lee: "The result of the last week must 
convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance in this struggle, 
I regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any 
further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that 
portion of the Confederate Army known as the Army of Northern 
Virginia." 

By agreement, the two opposing Generals met at Appomattox 
Court-House on April 9, 1865, and there Lee formally surrendered 
his army. When Grant's men learned of the surrender, they began 
to salute in honor of the victory, but Grant, hearing the first shot, 
ordered them to stop. So great was his feeUng for the defeated foe, 
that he did not wish to add to its distress. All the other Confederate 
armies soon surrendered, and the Civil War, which had lasted for 
four years, was at an end. "Unconditional Surrender" Grant was 
the hero of the war. 

President of the United States 

A FTER war ended. Grant busied himself in Washington for 
-^^ some time, canceling orders for munitions and army supplies, 
then he set out to disband the several armies. In 1866, Congress 
revived for him the grade of general, and on August 12, 1867, he was 
appointed acting secretary of war by President Johnson, and served 



until January, 1868. Grant continued to be the country's favorite 
leader, and on May 20, 1868, he was nominated for President of the 
United States by the unanimous vote of the National Union Re- 
publican Convention assembled in Chicago. Grant received word 
of his nomination at his old home in Galena, and in his letter of 
acceptance he penned the simple words, "Let us have peace," — "an 
appeal which went to the people's hearts and proved to be the 
rallying cry of the campaign." 

General Ulysses Simpson Grant was elected eighteenth President 
of the United States, and served two terms, eight years, from 1869 
to 1877. This was the first strictly civil office he ever held. As 
he never held a council of war in the army, so now he asked no advice 
concerning his inaugural address or his cabinet. His two terms were 
marked by great achievements both at home and abroad. In 
Grant's inaugural, he expressed a desire for the ratification of the 
Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, giving the negro the 
vote; a wish fulfilled in the first part of his administration. Grant 
was the first of our Presidents to take such an advanced step as to 
declare that he would favor any course toward the Indians which 
would tend to their civilization and ultimate citizenship, and under 
his guidance we have the "First serious attempt at humanitarian 
treatment of the Indian by the Government." 

To Grant must also go considerable credit for the prompt 
attention given the national debt. At the end of the war, the 
Government owed millions of dollars to its own citizens as well as 
to foreign countries. The very first act of the Congress which came 
into existence on March 4, 1869, 
— the day Grant was inaugurated 
— was a law which solemnly 
pledged the faith of the United 
States to the payment, in gold or 
its equivalent, of United States 
notes and all United States bonds, 
except those where the law per- 
mitting their issue called for pay- 
ment in "other currency than 

gold or silver." During Grant's ..j p^.^p^Z to fight it out on this line 
first two years the national debt if it takes all summer" 




was reduced $200,000,000, and by the end of seven years it was 
reduced by $435,000,000 and taxes were reduced by nearly 
$300,000,000. 

Reconstruction in the South gave Grant many difficult problems 
to solve. All the Southern States were taken back into the Union. 
But from time to time there were massacres, riots, and petty rebel- 
lions. During Grant's second term of office, there were racial and 
political uprisings in Louisiana, Mississippi, and southern Carolina, 
which he was forced to put down by the use of federal soldiers. 
Slowly but surely he succeeded in restoring order. 

In his second annual message to Congress, Grant complained of 
the great embarrassment of the President in appointing men to 
public offices. He recommended that Congress provide a means 
whereby the appoin-tment of public officials be based upon merit, 
thus displacing the so-called spoils system. A short time later he 
signed the first Civil Service Reform Bill ever passed by Congress. 

Perhaps Grant's greatest accomplishment as President was the 
establishment of the principle of arbitration between nations. 
During the Civil War, Great Britain had violated her neutrality 
by lending aid to the Confederate States. From time to time, now 
that peace had come, other questions with Great Britain were aris- 
ing. Grant, realizing that to go to war with England at this time 
would not be wise, named (February 9, 1871) five United States 
Commissioners to meet with British representatives to settle matters 
peaceably. The treaty drawn up by the British and American 
Joint High Commission was ratified by the Senate May 24, 1871. 
Great Britain paid $15,500,000 in gold to the United States for 
damage done by the ships Florida, Alabama, and Shenandoah 
during the war. "Thus Grant must have the credit for establishing 
the principle of arbitration in international disputes; for this was 
brought about by reason of the firmness with which he held_ to the 
validity of American demands. If anywhere along the line his 
conduct had been marked by vacillation, the result could not have 
been achieved. To him must also go the credit of being among the 
earliest to encourage the principle of a world's Congress, as afterwards 
embodied in the Hague Tribunal, when before the Arbitration Union 
in Birmingham he said: 'Nothing could afford me greater happiness 
than to know that, as I believe will be the case, at some future day, 
the nations of the earth will agree upon some sort of congress, which 
will take cognizance of international questions of difficulty, and 
whose decisions will be as binding as the decisions of our Supreme 



Court are upon us. It is a dream of mine that some such solution 
may be.' " 

Although one of the great generals in history, Grant loved 
peace. He sought by every possible means to keep his country 
safe and secure for the people. He believed that every citizen of 
America should know American customs, laws, and institutions. 
Grant was the first President to call emphatic attention to the 
danger of giving the vote to foreigners who did not know our language 
or institutions. He said: "Foreigners coming to this country to 
become citizens, who are educated in their own language, should 
acquire the requisite knowledge of ours during the necessary residence 
to obtain naturalization. If they did not take interest enough in 
our language to acquire sufficient knowledge of it to enable them to 
study the institutions and laws of the country intelhgently, I would 
not confer upon them the rights to make such laws or select those who 
do." 

Trip around the World 

AFTER his eight years as President, Grant made a trip around 
the world. Everywhere he was received with great acclaim. 
He visited London, every capital of Europe, and almost every 
important city. From Europe he went to Egypt, then to Asia, 
visiting the Holy Land, and later India, Siam, China, and Japan. 
He was welcomed and honored by kings, queens, emperors, the 
Pope — the rulers of the world. No American statesman had 
ever before been so lavishly received and entertained at royal 
courts the world round. In September, 1879, he reached California, 
and as his train crossed the conti- 
nent, he was cheered all along the ^^^^ "^^^ 
line by the hundreds of thousands ^^^ ^^^-^ -^^ 
of his countrymen who sought to ^^^X^^ ^WWWWW 
do him honor. ^■^^^xmiliXUm 



In Retirement 

WHEN Grant returned from 
his trip around the world, he 
had very little money left, and he 
was faced with the necessity of 
earning a living. He entrusted 
what property he had to one of his 




Grant's Tomb, New York 



sons who entered into business with Ferdinand Ward on Wall Street, 
New York. General Grant took no active part in the business, but 
he received large sums of money as his share of the earnings of the 
company, bought a handsome house in Sixty-sixth Street, near 
Fifth Avenue, New York, and was looking forvv^ard to ease and 
prosperity in his remaining years. Suddenly, almost without 
warning, the company failed and he was left penniless. ^ Surrounded 
by debts, overcome by failure, weakened by age and disease, Grant 
was again to face the world. He began by writing articles on the 
battles of Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and the Wilderness. As 
these were published and brought him money, he decided to write 
the complete story of his experiences, his Memoirs. 

During the winter of 1884, a cancer developed in his throat. 
In January, 1885, when the doctors told him that he could not 
recover, he was in mental agony lest he could not finish his Memoirs 
and thus restore his own good name, provide for his family, and 
repay those to whom he was indebted. He won the race. His story 
was finished early in the summer, and on July 23, 1885, he died. 
On August 8 he was buried in New York at Riverside Park, overlook- 
ing the Hudson, where a tomb of unusual beauty marks the grave. 

In Memoriam 

GRANT was a silent man. He seldom spoke except when spoken 
to; yet when he gave his word, he never failed to keep it. This 
habit of constancy contributed to his success as a leader of men. 
His soldiers trusted him implicitly. He gave his orders thoughtfully 
and directly, without undue excitement or harshness. Never once 
throughout the war did he complain to Lincoln or appeal to Con- 
gress. Concerning his own deeds. Grant was modest almost beyond 
belief. A friend once said, "I have tried to recall a single instance 
of conversation in regard to the late war when I had heard General 
Grant allude to himself, and I could not. I have heard him speak 
in most glowing terms of his comrades in arms. I believe that you 
might go to the White House and live with him and converse about 
the war day after day, and you never would know from anything 
he said that he was in the war at all." 

Great of heart, simple in manner, devoted to his country and 
his countr^«l|, GranL was hailed as the hero of his day, and is now 
honored ap6rf€rof Am|ricy5 greatest leaders and generals. 

ISSUE NO. 81— CoPYRiCHT, 1923 — JoMH Hancock Mutual Life Ims. Co.. Boston, Mass. 



President 1869-77 




Presented by the 




Life Insurance Company 

OF Boston. Massachusetts 






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